This year the Midlands Tour was in its 64th edition and had been moved
from Ballan to Meredith.  This race is known as the toughest on the
Victorian calendar due to the terrain it is run over, the weather (it
will usually be almost snowing around Daylesford) and the distance, of
170km in length.  Due to the fact that it is a graded handicap the is
not much chance to roll along in the bunch sitting on.  It is also worth
mentioning that this is one of the richest single day Opens attracting
$4,000 and money on offer to the first 20 places largely thanks to
Footscray Cycling Club.

As mentioned earlier the race had been moved to Meredith, a small town
near the Brisbane Ranges National Park situated inbetween Geelong and
Ballarat.  The route went firstly to Maude, and then 4 laps around a
33km circuit near Sutherland Creek incorporating 2 long steep hills on
each lap.  Once the 4 laps were completed the race headed back to
Meredith, with another half a dozen or so leg busting steep hills to
traverse.  As noticed after the race the entire course consisted of over
1700m of climbing.

I had been placed in C grade by the handicapper but decided that I
wanted to race B grade so I elected to put myself up.  Hopefully this
decision wouldn't come back to haunt me later.  From the beginning bunch
of about 15 of us we had up to 5 or 6 sitting on in the first 20km.
There were some really long steep hills initially and I am sure these
were frightening some people.  Once through the first 20km we got onto
the 4 loops and luckily encountered some fast and flat sections to
encourage most of the bunch to start working.  Each climb on the loop
was climbed conservatively knowing that we had 8 of these in total not
including the hills on the way back to the finish.  I was feeling quite
good and riding close to the front of the bunch up the hills keeping in
a low gear and spinning the legs to keep them as fresh as possible.

With about 40km to go and when we were on our final lap of the circuit
we caught C grade and straight away picked up the pace considerably to
try and lose some hangers on.  We succeeded partially but by now we were
all getting quite weary.  On the last 2 climbs of the last loop we
dropped most of C grade and once turning back onto the road to Meredith
some of the stronger B graders started attacking which whittled the
bunch down to about 12 in total.  With about 10km remaining the peleton
was reduced to only 7 of us with myself still feeling ok and managing to
go with the attacks.  We were advised that A grade was only 1.04min down
and had been reduced to only 4.

Now it was 7 of us against 4 of them and with 5km to go and while we
were climbing one of the steepest parts of the course the gap had now
been reduced to 48sec, however they were down to 3 only.  The bunch
continued to do huge amounts of encouraging making sure everyone would
work and not long after the gap was now out to 1.20min.  At this point
the 7 of us decided to split the large purse and keep working all the
way to the finish.  The sprint started only 300m from the line.  In one
last effort I managed to take 3rd on the line and continued my good form
as of late.

Results: (172km)

1st William Murray (B)                      4.23.07 (av 38.34 km/h)
2nd Brendan Washington (B)             
3rd Paul Logan (B)
4th Brenton Slotegraaf (B)
5th Brian McNamara (B)

For full results, see Cyclesport Victoria.

 

King of the Mountains Classification

1. J. Alexander  (Bendigo) 16 points

2. B. Mc Dermott (Geelong) 11 pts.

3. P. Logan (Coburg) 3 pts.